


Neglected, Rejected, Lost

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton
Genre: Abandonment, Depressed Parent, Gen, Heavy Angst, Imprisonment, Kidnapped by Palpatine, Maul's horrific childhood, Piled Refuse, Starvation, cliffhanger ending, parental neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-17 18:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20625551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: Tahl died when Obi-Wan was fifteen, and in the year since, Qui-Gon has stopped functioning as a parent. The Council is about to place Obi-Wan with someone else.





	Neglected, Rejected, Lost

**Author's Note:**

> [Moddy on tumblr](http://swpromptsandasks.tumblr.com/) released this prompt in a Prompt Run to find another home.
> 
> Original Prompt:  
What about an angsty dark!au where the council recognizes qui-gon’s neglect partway through obi-wan’s apprenticeship and separates them with the intent of another master taking obi-wan as a padawan because he’s older now and can control his temper and has so much potential, but he thinks he’s going to be sent to the corps and runs away, only to get picked up by a criminal or darksider? Becoming a dangerous Sith Lord perhaps?  

> 
> Additional warning: Teen Maul is kept chained up like a dog when not training. He's tried to claw his way out and has not succeeded.

Obi-Wan rocked, sobbing into his knees in a corner of their cold apartment.

They'd found out. Somehow, the Council had found out, after all his efforts to keep it hidden, and it was over.

They were taking away Qui-Gon.

_No. They're taking away _me.

As if Obi-Wan _minded _if he had to scrounge his own food? And if he was hurt, he could take care of it, what mattered it if he turned himself in to the healers by himself instead of being dragged in by a master? Sure, he got left behind on some missions, but he always managed to catch up. Obi-Wan kept his grades up even if Qui-Gon didn't pay attention to it, Obi-Wan hadn't fallen behind in _anything, _so why would he be _punished this way_?

He'd always known it might happen, but after Tahl's death a year ago, it became harder to hide.

Qui-Gon wasn't even trying to look clean anymore. He just... shrugged, whenever Obi-Wan asked him what he wanted Obi-Wan to do.

_Go back and die in Tahl's place, _he knew, but Qui-Gon never said it, so Obi-Wan wouldn't either.

And now the Council was going to drag Obi-Wan away because Qui-Gon had been investigated, and Neglect had been the conclusion.

_I'm sixteen. I don't need him to baby me every step of the way as if I were a youngling. I'll be an adult in two years. Why couldn't you have waited for just two years? Then everything would have been fine._

Three years of hope, and now it's over.

Obi-Wan wiped at his eyes. He had to _see _if he was going to escape.

He couldn't... he just _couldn't _face the AgriCorps again. Anything, other than that. It wasn't fear of farming. Or of being a farmer. It had to do with being called a Jedi, but not having a lightsaber.

Of seeing, every damn day, that Qui-Gon Jinn hadn't fought for him, when the Council demanded he explain his actions concerning his apprentice.

The pain, the _agony _Qui-Gon inflicted when Windu warned that Obi-Wan could be taken from him and Obi-Wan watched his master shrug.

Shrug.

Qui-Gon cut their bond and walked out the door, silent, and Obi-Wan felt every last bit of hope _die._

He didn't hear what was said to him after that, he had no idea what happened.

And now he was back here. He'd escaped the watchful eyes that would _not _leave him be—

Force forbid he _escape—_

He couldn't afford to linger, or he'd be found and the noose would slip tighter.

He was a minor, and the Order had custody. They couldn't _actually _let him just walk out, not for another two years. Then they wouldn't be able to legally stop him.

No one was going to walk in that door and help him prepare to leave forever.

If Qui-Gon Jinn had taught him one thing in these three years of apprenticeship, it was that the only person Obi-Wan could count on was himself.

* * *

_He didn't know, didn't see how they searched for him long into the night, how the man who had chosen to take him on as an apprentice didn't give up month after month, the Kel Dor master hunting the galaxy to find the hurting child who'd run away when light had just touched the end of his tunnel._

* * *

He worked, for a while. Sold his mechanics skills at a spaceport on Garel, returning to a bare room above a cantina each night, to try to fall asleep in spite of the laughter and thump of music below.

It was, Obi-Wan soon decided, _hell._

But at least it was a hell without anything to remind him of Qui-Gon Jinn. If he could keep his brain too busy to think all day, and his body too tired to lie awake at night, perhaps someday he could escape that pall.

* * *

The man hadn't looked any different than anyone else.

He hadn't _felt _different in the Force, either.

Obi-Wan had no warning when the customer from yesterday with the lovely Naboo yacht kriffing _kidnapped him _and carried him away on said ship.

He didn't even realize it _had happened _until he awoke to find himself in an old stone chamber, chained and staring into a pair of golden eyes that glittered in the dark.

A crimson-and-midnight zabrak, chained by throat and wrists and ankle just like Obi-Wan himself, a Force-suppressing collar very similar to Obi-Wan's own locked around the other teen's throat.

Obi-Wan's age, or perhaps a bit younger, the golden eyed observer scowled when he saw Obi-Wan was awake.

“I will not be replaced by you,” a soft voice hissed.

Obi-Wan took in the creature's starved-thin form, the piled decaying refuse in the corner, and the scratch marks against the wall that looked like they'd been inflicted with fingernails. His stomach flipped.

“Trust me,” he murmured, “taking your place is the last thing I want.”


End file.
